Seton Hall student dies in accident at Chinese amusement park

As the spring semester ended at Seton Hall University, Haosi Wu was looking forward to a globe-trotting summer break.

The popular graduate student was planning to visit her parents in China, then travel back to New Jersey to prepare for a study-abroad trip to Japan with her boyfriend and fellow students in the diplomacy school.

But Wu never completed the first leg of her trip. She and her parents were among six people killed in an amusement park accident in China, Seton Hall officials said today.

Wu, 23, died Tuesday afternoon when a space-themed ride malfunctioned at the OCT East theme park in Shenzhen, about an hour north of Hong Kong. Also killed were Wu’s mother, Yanan Zhu, and father, Lian Wu.

"Haosi was an excellent student and was involved around campus. Our prayers are with Haosi, her parents, family and friends," said Laura Wankel, Seton Hall’s vice president for student affairs.

According to local media reports, the family was riding Space Journey, an elevated, high-speed ride with 11 spinning cabins that each carry four passengers. One of the cabins detached, hit other cabins and sent some passengers falling 50 feet to the ground.

The Chinese government is investigating the cause of the accident, which killed six and injured 10.

Wu’s boyfriend and friends did not know she had been involved in the amusement park accident until a friend in Beijing spotted her name in a Chinese-language paper. Seton Hall officials eventually confirmed the deaths of Wu and her parents through a relative.

Seton Hall is providing grief counseling on the South Orange campus for those who knew Wu, school officials said.

Wu recently completed her third semester in Seton Hall’s dual degree master’s program in Asian studies/ diplomacy and international relations. She served as vice president of the school’s Chinese student association.

"She was the most genuine person I had ever known," said Sevan Simon, her boyfriend and a fellow Seton Hall graduate student. "Everybody she met loved her."

Wu had recently moved into Simon’s Newark apartment and the pair were planning a life together after they graduated. She left late last month to visit her parents in China and planned to return to New Jersey on July 12.

Wu’s father was a doctor and her mother was a pharmacist. She was their only child.

Born in China, Wu majored in English and European history in college. She came to the U.S. to study at Seton Hall with dreams of becoming a professor, her boyfriend said.

Wu was a classically-trained pianist who was fluent in Japanese, English and Chinese and active in a Chinese-language Protestant church in South Orange, friends said. She was also a hard-working student who loved to "sing her heart out" during karaoke nights, said classmate Jerome Victor Ramos, 25.

"My wish is that if I could achieve even half the enthusiasm she displayed during her time at Seton Hall," Ramos said.

Jing Zhang, a fellow graduate student, met Wu through their church and described her as a positive and beautiful person.

"I feel so sad to lose someone who is as talented as she is," said Zhang, 24.